NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Meet the Presiding Officers
TUESDAY: NCTR President-Elect Jill Bachus Jill Bachus is the Director of the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS). The system serves 235,000 active members, 140,000 retired members, and has over $44 billion in assets. Ms. Bachus has been employed with the Tennessee Treasury Department for 35 years in various capacities including Director of Accounting and Director of the Baccalaureate Education System Trust (BEST). Ms. Bachus currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Council on Teacher Retirement.
Ms. Bachus is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Government Financial Manager, and received her B.B.A. and M.B.A. from Middle Tennessee State University. She is a 2001 graduate of the Tennessee Government Executive Institute.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Mara Liasson (Keynote Speaker: Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 9:00–10:00 am)
Mara Liasson is the national political correspondent for NPR, and a regular panelist on Special Report with Brit Hume and Fox News Sunday on Fox News Channel. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazines All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Ms. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC— focusing on the White House and Congress -- and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.
Each election year, Ms. Liasson provides key coverage of the candidates and issues in both presidential and congressional races. During her tenure she has covered three presidential elections—in 1992, 1996, and 2000. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Liasson was NPR's White House correspondent for all eight years of the Clinton administration. She has won the White House Correspondents Association's Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage in 1994, 1995, and again in 1997. From 1989-1992 Ms. Liasson was NPR's congressional correspondent.
Ms. Liasson joined NPR in 1985 as a general assignment reporter and newscaster. From September 1988 to June 1989 she took a leave of absence from NPR to attend Columbia University in New York as a recipient of a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism.
Prior to joining NPR, Ms. Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in San Francisco. She was also managing editor and anchor of California Edition, a California Public Radio nightly news program, and a print journalist for The Vineyard Gazette in Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
Ms. Liasson is a graduate of Brown University where she earned a bachelor's degree in American history.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the Alternatives/Hedge Funds (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 10:30-11:30 am)
MODERATOR: Allan Emkin founded Pension Consulting Alliance, Inc. in 1988, with offices in Los Angeles, New York City, and Portland, Oregon, and is the Managing Director. Long a member of the consulting community, Mr. Emkin has 32 years of general consulting experience emphasizing public plan administration and investment policy, as well as international, global, and real estate investments. Mr. Emkin was a Vice President at Wilshire Associates before forming PCA in 1988. Prior to his work in the consulting field, Mr. Emkin worked in the California Governor’s office in the Pension Investment Unit. Before joining the Brown administration, he was a registered lobbyist for 10 years specializing in affordable housing and other matters affecting low-income families. Mr. Emkin is a frequent speaker at various conferences and educational seminars and has long standing relationships with Liberty Hill Foundation in Santa Monica, California as well as The Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University.
PANELISTS:
As Director of Alternative Investments at the Oregon State Treasury, John Hershey is responsible for all alternative asset classes including: private equity, real estate, and alternative investments. Together these asset classes comprise over one-third of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund (OPERF). Prior to assuming this role in 2014, Mr. Hershey was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Alternatives Portfolio and Opportunity Portfolio for OPERF. With assets of approximately $70 billion, OPERF was recently ranked as one of the 25 largest pension funds in the U.S.
Before joining OST in February 2008, Mr. Hershey was an independent consultant. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director at Hercules Technology Growth Capital, a publicly traded investment firm. Before joining Hercules, Mr. Hershey was a Managing Director at Infinity Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund. Prior to Infinity, he was a Managing Director at Banc of America Securities in the technology investment banking group. Before joining Banc of America’s predecessor firm, Montgomery Securities, he was an Associate at Wolfensohn Partners, an all stage venture capital fund.
John has a BA in Economics from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the Alternatives/Hedge Funds (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 10:30-11:30 am)
Steven Tong is the Director of Innovation and Risk at California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS). Steven oversees a team tasked with three primary objectives: (1) Risk Mitigating Strategies class, (2) Innovation program, and (3) Total Fund Risk Management. A brief description of each area is as follows: Risk Mitigation Strategies: Implement and manage a class designed to minimize the shortfall and drawdown risks. Innovation: Researches and incubate strategies that are new to CalSTRS and expected to improve the long-term risk-adjusted return of the total plan. Risk Management: Monitors and manages the total plan risk across asset classes to inform discussions on how best to allocate funds going forward.
Prior to working with the Innovation and Risk Team, Steven served as Director of Internal Equities.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the CIO Panel (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 1:30-2:30 pm)
MODERATOR: Pamela McKoin has over 30 years of real estate experience in development, asset management, portfolio management and business development. Currently she works at Barings Real Estate Advisers, a global real estate investment management firm with $50 billion in assets under management. She markets the firm’s services to public and corporate pension fund clients, as well as foundations and endowments. Ms. McKoin is also responsible for consultant relations. She is a registered representative with Series 7 and 63 licenses. At Barings she was Portfolio Manager for one public pension plan and one corporate pension plan from 2003–2007.
She has worked at Spaulding and Slye Real Estate Developers, The City of New York’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). She has also worked as an asset manager and business development professional at Clarion Partners. She also ran her own firm Mac Development Company in Boston, which consulted on commercial and residential properties and bid on development projects and has been a consultant to Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) on the Retail Initiative Fund.
Ms. McKoin received a BA from University of Cincinnati and a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Real Estate.
PANELISTS: Angela Miller-May currently serves as the Director of Investments for the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund (CTPF), a $10B pension fund that services a membership of over 63,000 active and retired Chicago Public School teachers. She focuses on providing strategic portfolio construction, excellent manager selection and rigorous due diligence and works extensively with staff in meeting CTPF’s investment goals. Ms. Miller-May joined Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund in 2010 and in the role of Portfolio Manager-Alternatives was responsible for monitoring alternative (real estate, infrastructure, private equity and hedge fund-of-funds) investment managers to ensure contractual, compliance, fiduciary and investment responsibilities to the Fund were met. She focused on initial due diligence and maintenance due diligence as well as overseeing and analyzing all alternative valuations. She actively evaluated and reconciled accounting and performance information provided by the Investment Managers, Custodians and Consultants. Ms. Miller-May previously served CTPF in the role of Investment Operations Analyst-Risk Management and utilized her experience in accounting, security litigation, taxation, proxy voting, procedure standardization and compliance to improve CTPF processes and implement various risk controls. Prior to joining CTPF, Ms. Miller-May worked over 13 years in the banking industry managing check operations for Fiserv, Inc. and the Northern Trust Company. Ms. Miller-May holds a M.B.A in Accounting from DePaul University and a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the CIO Panel (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 1:30-2:30 pm)
Jennifer Paquette is the Chief Investment Officer of Colorado PERA and manages the investment activities for the $44 billion pension plan. Prior to joining Colorado PERA, Ms. Paquette was Vice President, Institutional Account Executive, for Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith. Ms. Paquette also worked for Alliance Capital Management as Vice President, Portfolio Manager. She received a Master’s of Science degree from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College. She holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst and is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Colorado. Ms. Paquette is Chair of the Colorado Trust Board of Trustees. She is also a member of the boards of the Samaritan Institute, the Samaritan Foundation and Rwanda Village Makeover.
Lorrie Tingle, CFA, has served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi since June, 1996. She graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology, and worked for six years for Occidental Petroleum as an Exploration Geologist. After receiving her MBA from Mississippi College she joined the operations division of Thompson-McKinnon Securities. Prior to joining PERS in 1991, as an Investment Analyst Senior, she worked in the Investment Division of Trustmark National Bank. Lorrie has been recognized by the Mississippi Business Journal as one of the 50 Leading Business Women in Mississippi and was ranked as one of the Top 30 Women Chief Investment Officers by TrustedInsights. She is also Chartered Financial Analyst.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the ESG Panel (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 3:00-4:00 pm)
MODERATOR: Deborah K. Simonds is a retired teacher from Georgia. She was a High School Special Education teacher for 27 years at Berkmar High School in Gwinnett County. Ms. Simonds served as the Department Chairperson for Special Education at Berkmar HS for 17 years. Prior to teaching in Georgia, Ms. Simonds taught in her home town of Wichita Falls, TX, for three years and in Baton Rouge, LA, for three years.
Ms. Simonds received her Bachelor’s of Elementary Education and a Master’s of Education from Midwestern State University. She continued her education at Georgia State University and received a Master’s of Special Education.
During her career, Ms. Simonds served as state President for the Georgia Association of Educators. She was appointed by Governors Joe Frank Harris and Zell Miller to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. Ms. Simonds was also appointed by the NEA to serve on The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). NCATE is a coalition of more than 30 national associations. Accountability and improvement in teacher preparation are central to NCATE’s mission.
Ms. Simonds was first elected to the Georgia TRS Board of Trustees in 2012 and currently serves on the Investment, Joint Management, and Administrative Procedures committees. Ms. Simonds is currently serving her third term on NCTR’s Legislative Committee and remains active with both the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) and GAE-Retired.
PANELISTS:
Sandra Carlisle is Head of Responsible Investment at Newton Investment Management. Sandra manages the team which ensures the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into Newton’s fundamental research process.
Prior to joining Newton, Sandra was a director at F&C Investments. Sandra built the sustainability and climate change practice at Brunswick Group and she set up and ran the climate change and thematic sustainability investment team within global markets and banking at Citi. Whilst at Citi, Sandra co-founded Citiwomen, a group-wide diversity network, which won a Business in the Community Opportunity Now award in 2001. Sandra has also worked for Deutsche Bank and SG Warburg as a European equity specialist. Sandra started her career in fixed income at JP Morgan, where she also spent several year in the emerging market debt restructuring team. Sandra is a visiting business fellow at the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. In January 2016, she was elected to the PRI board.
2 years at Newton 30 years’ investment experience
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island Bios for the ESG Panel (Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 3:00-4:00 pm)
Emiliano Rabinovich, CFA, is a Vice President of State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) and a Senior Portfolio Manager in the firm’s Global Equity Beta Solutions (GEBS) team. Within this group, he is the strategy leader for their Canadian products. Emiliano currently manages a varied mix of funds that include both traditional indexing and a variety of alternative beta mandates. Also, Emiliano manages several local and global strategies and fund structures, which include separate accounts, commingled funds, and mutual funds.
Emiliano joined SSGA in Montreal in 2006, where he was the Head of the GEBS team in Canada. He has been working in the investment management field since 2003.
Emiliano holds a BA in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires and a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of CEMA. He has also earned the CFA Designation and is a member of the Boston Security Analysis Society.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island
OPEN FORUM FOR ASSOCIATE COMMERCIAL MEMBERS Tuesday, October 11, 2016; 4:00 pm
MODERATOR
James J. White, Jr., Partner, is responsible for consultant relations and business development in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the United States for William Blair & Company, L.L.C. He joined William Blair in 2010 with 24 years of experience in the institutional asset management industry. Before joining the firm, Jim was the U.S. head of consultant relationship management at UBS Global Asset Management, where he was responsible for servicing consulting organizations concentrating on global asset allocation, global equities, global bonds, alternative assets, and specific asset class mandates.
He is the head of the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Fundraising Campaign for the Chicago area, a member of the SMU Parent Leadership Committee, and a member of the National Council on Teacher Retirement Corporate Advisory Committee, and he was a board member of the American Youth Soccer Organization for 15 years. Education: BFA, advertising/public relations in journalism, and BA, political science, Southern Methodist University; MBA, with a concentration in finance, marketing, and organizational behavior, Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island
2016 Teacher of the Year Dinner Tuesday Evening, October 11, 2016
INTRODUCTION OF MS. JAHANA HAYES OF WATERBURY, CONNECTICUT, BY: Clare Barnett has chaired the Connecticut Teachers’ Retirement Board since 1993. Over a span of more than 20 years, Clare taught middle school and high school classes, including American and World History, Geography, and American Government, Civil Law, and Economics, then served as the district-wide coordinator of Social Studies for more than 25 years.
As a Governor Appointee, Clare has served on the State Treasurers’ Investment Advisory Council (IAC) and the Health Issues Study Committee, and chaired the Social Security Study Committee. She represented teachers on the IAC for 19 years. She has also served on the State Supreme Courts Advisory Committee on Law-related Education and on the Executive Committee of the National Council on Teacher Retirement, including one year as President. Since 2001, she has helped develop education curriculum for pension trustees.
Clare received the Federal Teaching American History (TAH) Award over multiple years, and the Connecticut Education Association’s “Salutes Award” in 2001. She was awarded two separate TAH grants from the Federal Government, each for more than $1 million dollars. These funds were used to provide 40 teachers in Danbury, Connecticut, and surrounding towns a Master's of Arts degree in American History. Many of the most prominent scholars of American History came to Danbury to share their scholarship with teachers and members of the community. Clare is a member of Phi Delta Kappa–Western Connecticut State University Chapter, and a participant in the Leon Jaworski Institute, American Government and Constitutional Issues, at the University of Pennsylvania. With a team of teachers, she co- authored Young People’s Guide to Danbury History.
Clare holds a BA in European History from Elms College, an MA in American Studies from Fairfield University, and a 6th-year degree in Administration/Supervision from Southern Connecticut State University.
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NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER RETIREMENT 94th Annual Conference October 2016 Providence, Rhode Island
JAHANA HAYES History Teacher, John F. Kennedy High School, Waterbury, Connecticut 2016 TEACHER OF THE YEAR Speaking Tuesday Evening, October 11, 2016
Jahana’s route to teaching began as a student. The first in her family to graduate from college, she was inspired by her teachers who urged her to dream bigger and who believed that she was college material, despite a challenging upbringing
A veteran history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut, Jahana also sees herself as an advisor, counselor, confidant and protector. She endeavors to fill the role her own teachers had in her life, guiding students to be their best selves and encouraging them to take ownership of their communities.
“As a teacher, I strive to facilitate learning in a way that engages students by connecting on a personal level and stimulating academic growth, while simultaneously producing contentious and productive members of society,” she says.
For Jahana, being a teacher is a privilege and an opportunity to transform lives and foster a sense of social responsibility in the next generation. As the 2016 National Teacher of the Year and a spokesperson for the teaching profession, Jahana hopes to motivate more people to become educators and continue to carry out this important work.
Jahana has taught for the past 12 years, 10 of which have been in her current role. She earned an Associate’s degree from Naugatuck Valley Community College, a Bachelor of Science from Southern Connecticut State University, a Master of Arts from Saint Joseph University and a certification from the University of Bridgeport.
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